Business news

MINSK, 16 August (BelTA) – Belarus is the leading CIS country in the separate collection of solid municipal waste, BelTA learned from Dmitry Kazanovsky, Head of the Economy Office of the Belarusian Housing and Utilities Ministry.

Dmitry Kazanovsky said: “The approach to separate waste collection in Belarus is changing. We thank citizens for that. The share of recycled resources stood at 6% ten years ago. Now the figure is at 16%. We are the CIS leaders in this respect. We do better than Latvia and Slovakia. We are close to Portugal and Spain. For instance, Finland boasts 18%.”

The state enterprise in charge of recycling secondary material resources works hard to increase the share of recycled waste. Dmitry Kazanovsky believes it is necessary to draw the attention of municipal government agencies to municipal waste recycling where citizens are morally ready for separate waste collection and where the necessary conditions need to be enabled.

As much as 297,700 tonnes of secondary raw materials was collected in Belarus in January-June 2017, 102.3% as against the same period of last year. The figure included 151,800 tonnes of waste paper and pasteboard, 86,000 tonnes of glass, 33,800 tonnes of plastic, 19,500 tonnes of used tires, 4,500 tonnes of used lubricants and oils, and 2,100 tonnes of electric and electronic waste.

Among the largest projects in the sphere of utilities Dmitry Kazanovsky mentioned the construction of a waste recycling factory and the improvement of waste collection practices in Grodno.